The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-09-26

may be one hundred feet high, and yet a
detection one foot from the foundation af
fectS the entire structure And if YOU live
a hundred years and do right the last eighty
years, you may nevertheless do something
at twenty years of age that will damage all
your earthly existence. All you who have
built houses for yourselves or for others, am
/ not right in saying to these young men,
you cannot build a wall so high as to be in
dependent of the character of its founda-
tion9 A man before thirty years of
age may commit enough sin to last him
lifetime. A cat that has killed one pigeon
cannot be cured. Keep it from killing the
first pigeon Now, John, or George, or
Charles, or William, or Alexander, or An
drew, or whatever be your Christian name
or surname. say here and now; "No wild
oats for me, no cigars or cigarettes for me,
no wine or beer for me, no nasty stories for
me, no Sunday sprees for me, am going to
start right and keep on right God help
me, for am very weak From the throne
of eternal Righteousness let down to me the
principles by which can be guided in build
ing everything from foundation to capstone.
Lord God, by the wounded hand of Christ,
throw me a plumbline"
Lord Nelson's general direction when GO
ing into naval battle was, no man can do
wrong that places his ship close alongside
that of the enemy. My friend, you will
never do wrong if you keep your life close
alongside the Ten Commandments. Do
right, and you can be as brave as Maria
Theresa, who rode up the Hill of Defiance
and shook her sword at the four corners of
the earth.
But" YOU say, "you shut us young folks
out from all fun.n Oh, mol | like fun. l
believe in fun, | have had lots Of it i'll my
time But have not had to go into paths
of sin to find it. No credit to me, but be-
cause OF an extraordinary parental exam
pie and influence | was kept from outward
transgressions, though my heart was bad
enough and desperately wicked. | have had
fun illimitable, though | never swore one
oath, and never gambled for SO much as the
value of a pin, and never saw the inside of
a haunt of sin save, as when ten yearssago,
with Commissioner of Police and a detec-
tive and two elders of my church, / explored
these cities by midnight not out of Gu
riosity, but that / might in pulpit discourse
set before the people the poverty and the
horrors of underground city life. Yet,
though | never was intoxicated for an in
slant, and never committed one act of disso-
luteness, restrained only by the grace of
God, without which restraint | would have
gone headlong TO the bottom of in
fanny, | have had so much fun that |
don't believe there is a man on the planet in
the present time who has had more. Hear
it, men and boys, women and girls, all the
fun is on the side of right, Sin may seem
attractive, but it is deathful, and like the
manchineel, a tree whose dews are poison
Gus. The only genuine happiness is in an
honest Christian life. The Chippewa, want
ing to see God, blackens his face with char
coal and fasts till he has q vision of what he
calls God. My God, | can see best when |
take my hat off and let the sunshine blaze
in my face, and after a reasonable break
fast He is not God of blackness and star
vation, but of light and plenitude, and the
glory of the MONDAY sun is Egyptian
midnight compared to it. There they 60
two brothers. The one was converted
year ago in church one Sunday morning,
during prayer, or sermon, or hymn. No
one knew it at the time. The persons on
either side of him suspected nothing, but in
that young mans soul this process went on:
Lord, here | am, a young man amid the
temptations of city life, and l am afraid to
risk them alone; come and be my pardon
and my help; save me from making the
mistake that some of my comrades are
making, and save me now" And quicker
than a flash God rolled heaven into his soul.
He is just as jolly as he used to be, is just as
brilliant as he used to be. He can strike n
ball or catch one as easily as before he was
converted With gun or fishing rod in this
summer vacation he was just as skillful
as before. The world is brighter
to him than ever. He appre-
cIates pictures, music, innocent hilarity, so
cial life, good jokes, and has plenty of fun,
first-class fun, glorious fun. But his brother
is going down hill. In the morning his
head aches from the champagne debauch.
Everybody sees he is in rapid descent.
What cares he for right, or decency, or the
honor of his family namel Turned out OF
employment, depleted in health, cast down
in spirits, the typhoid fever strikes him in
the smallest room on the fourth story Of a
fifth-rate boarding house, cursing God, and
calling for his mother, and fighting back
demons from his dying pillow, which is be
sweated and torn to rags. He plunges out
Of this world with the shrek of destroyed
spirit. Alas for that kind of fun IL is
remorse. It is despair. 1t is blackness of
darkness. 1t is woe unending and long re-
verberating, and crushing as though all the
mountains Of all continents rolled on him in
one avalanche My soul, stand back from
such fun. Young man, there is no fun in
shipwreckng your character, no fun III dis
gracing your fathers name. There is no
fun in breaking your mothers heart. There
is no fun in the physical pangs of the disso-
Lutte There is no fun in the profiigate's
death-bed There is no fun in an undone
eternity. Paracesus, out of the ashes of a
burnt rose, said he could re-create the rose,
Dut ne IdllSU Ill bile ulc0cfllc Undertaking,
and roseate life once burned down in sin can
never again be made to blossom.
Oh this plumbine of the everlasting
right God will throw IL over all our lives
TO show us our moral reflections God will
throw il over all churches TO show whether
they are doing useful work or are standing
instances of iileness and pretense. He will
throw that plumb line over all nations to
demonstrate whether their laws are Just or
cruel their rulers good or bad, their ambi-
tions holy or infamous. He threw that
plumbline over the Spanish monarchy of
other days, and what became of herr Ask
the splintered hulks of her overthrown
Armada. He threw that plumbline over
French imperialism, and what was the re-
sultl Ask the ruins of the Tuilleries and
the fallen column of the Place Vendome,
and the grave trenches Of Sedan, and the
blood Of revolutions at different times
rolling through the Champs Elysees.
He threw that plumbline over ancient
Rome, and what became of the realm of the
Casars3 Ask her war eagles, with beaks
dulled and wings broken, flung helpless into
the Tiber. He threw it over the Assyrian
empire of thousand years, the thrones Of
Semiramis and Saronnapalus, and Shalma-
neser, of twenty-seyen victorious expedi-
tions, the cities OF Ph9nicia kneeling 20 the
sceptre, and all the world blanched
In the presence. What became OF all
the grandeur! Ask the fallen palaces Of
Khorsabad and the corpses OF her $4,000
soldiery slain by the angel OF the
Lord In one night, and the Asyrian
/. A.